194 CHILL 
sink into insignificance when compared with it. Indeed all the 
objects are upon such a grand scale that they fail to excite the notice 
that they would attract if situated elsewhere. On the top of this 
cuesta, Mr. Couthouy obtained, in a torpid state, a small quadruped 
of the size of a mouse, a very interesting specimen of the order 
Marsupia. A description of it, with a spirited drawing by Mr. 
Peale, will be found in the department of Mammalogy. 
The road over the cuesta was narrow, steep, and broken. It de- 
scended into a plain, which was found well cultivated and watered 
by a branch of the Aconcagua. 
The ridges on the northern side of the valley now became more 
lofty and precipitous, exhibiting the columnar structure more dis- 
tinctly. The trap dikes were in some places four feet wide, and in 
one place, where the rock had been cut to form the road, fourteen 
dikes were counted within three hundred feet. On their way up 
the valley the peon's horse gave out, and they were obliged to stop 
and hire another at a farmer's house, who was called Evangelisto 
Celidono. This rancho, twenty feet by ten, was rather better than 
others that were met with, but at the same time bore a strong 
resemblance to them. It was constructed of large adobes, or rather 
blocks of clay, and finished in the inside neatly with the same 
material. It consisted of but one apartment, the floor of which was 
clay. It had a thatched roof, which was open in several places. 
There was no window. The door and the holes in the roof supplied 
all the light. The furniture, if such it could be called, consisted of 
a rude bedstead and an apology for a table at one end; the other 
was divided into three bins, one to contain corn, another beans, and 
the third potatoes, with saddles and various kinds of horse-gear, and 
a bag or two of wheat. On one side was a clay seat, three feet broad 
by six long, and the height of an ordinary seat, whilst from the rafters 
hung in nets a good supply of bread, cheese, and numerous strings of 
onions, garlic, and red Chili peppers. There were besides two chairs 
and a bench. All the cooking is done in a small detached building, 
and a small clay oven in the yard is an accompaniment of every 
rancho. Bread and an abundance of grapes, of which they could not 
eat more than a third, were supplied them for a "medio." The 
second cuesta was shortly afterwards mounted, of about five hundred 
feet elevation, and on the top they were gratified by witnessing the 
mode in which the Chilians capture the wild horses. A party of four 
or five horsemen, with about twenty dogs, were seen formed in an 
